With the widespread of broadband Internet connections, viruses have become a serious threat. Nowadays, it is impossible to surf the web without worrying about virus or malware infections. Fortunately, antivirus programs have become more advanced over the years, to face this increasing threat. A good example is avast! Internet Security. It provides you with everything you need to defend your system, including multiple scanning methods, as well as a wide variety of real time protection features.

avast! Internet Security is free to try for 30 days. You can also find a free version, but it does not provide as many features as the paid one. It takes about two minutes to install the program, after which you must restart your machine. avast! Internet Security provides support for Windows XP, Vista, Win 7 and Win 8. Besides that, you don't need powerful hardware to run it, due to its modest requirements.

Like other antivirus programs, avast! Internet Security works in the background and you can bring up its user interface through its system tray icon. The interface has a modern and sleek design and its options are well organized and easy to understand. You can access the program's scanning features, maintenance utilities and other functions from a home screen. Once you access one of its features, you can travel to other sections of the interface via navigation tabs, instead of returning to the home screen.

The overall state of your computer's security is displayed on the same home screen. If a protection feature is turned off or not working properly, the software will notify you and it will also display an option to remedy this situation immediately. avast! Internet Security is capable of performing full, quick or custom scans and it can also scan removable drives for viruses and scan your computer's boot time. All scanning methods are displayed in a list and you can expand their entries to reveal additional options.

avast! Internet Security's real time protection system is quite flexible. It comes with multiple shields, which monitor your file system, emails, instant messenger conversations, Internet and network activity and more. If something suspicious makes its way to your computer through one of these channels, the corresponding shield will block it automatically. The best part is that you can enable or disable and configure each shield separately.

The software provides a large number of miscellaneous tools as well. Besides a firewall which can be set to different risk zones, you can also find an anti-spam module, a paid VPN service, as well as various maintenance utilities. If you are unsure of a certain file or application, you can run it with the program's SandBox feature, which isolates the item from the operating system. Even if the file or application is infected, you can make sure that it will not spread to the rest of the system. Another useful feature is avast! Internet Security's SafeZone, which allows you to work with trusted programs in a clean environment and perform sensitive operations, like bank transactions, without any risks.

Pros: avast! Internet Security places an abundance of security features at your disposal. Besides its multiple scanning options and real time monitoring features, the software comes with an anti-spam module and a configurable firewall. It also allows you to isolate suspicious files from the system and work with sensitive information in a clean environment.

Cons: The software tends to display too many notifications in the lower right corner of the screen.

avast! Internet Security provides you with the airtight security you need for protecting your computer against various forms of malware and viruses.

Frederick is a software review editor at FindMySoft. From gadgets to software.You can follow him on Google+,
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Avast Internet Security Awards

Avast Internet Security Editor's Review Rating

Avast Internet Security has been reviewed by Frederick Barton on
23 Oct 2013. Based on the user interface, features and complexity, Findmysoft has rated
Avast Internet Security 5
out of 5 stars, naming it Essential